Faust in Copenhagen: A Struggle for the Soul of Physics

by Gino Segre

Overview

A physicist himself, Gino Segrè writes about what scientists do and why they do it with intimacy, clarity, and passion. In Faust in Copenhagen, he evokes the fleeting, magical moment when physics' and the world was about to lose its innocence forever. Known by physicists as the miracle year, 1932 saw the discovery of the neutron and antimatter, as well as the first artificially induced nuclear transmutations. However, while scientists celebrated these momentous discoveries, which presaged the nuclear era and the emergence of big science, during a meeting at Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Institute, Europe was moving inexorably toward totalitarianism and war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780143113737
Publisher:	Penguin Publishing Group
Publication date:	05/27/2008
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	336
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.80(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Gino Segrè is professor of physics and astronomy at the University of Pennsylvania. An internationally renowned expert in high-energy elementary-particle theoretical physics, Segrè has served as director of Theoretical Physics at the National Science Foundation and received awards from the National Science Foundation, the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation, and the Guggenheim Foundation. This is his first book.

Table of Contents

Introduction     1
Munich Then and Now     9
The Changing Times     17
The 1920s
The Birth of the Quantum
Why Copenhagen?
The Meetings Begin
The 1932 Meeting
Goethe and Faust     39
In the Glow of Goethe
The "Copenhagen Faust"
The Front Row: The Old Guard     51
Niels Bohr
Paul Ehrenfest
Lise Meitner
The Front Row: The Revolutionaries     71
Old Age Is a Cold Fever
Werner Heisenberg
Wolfgang Pauli
Paul Dirac
Classical Mechanics versus Quantum Mechanics
The Front Row: The Young Ones     95
The Curse of the Knabenphysik
Max Delbruck
The Coming Storm     101
The Periodic Table
The New Kepler
Gottingen in 1922
Triumph and Crisis
The New Optimism
The Revolution Begins     129
Helgoland
Another Sleepless Night
Waves or Particles
Heisenberg versus Schrodinger
Uncertainty and Complementarity
The King in Decline     155
The Crucial Solvay Conference
Einstein-The King
The Great Synthesis     165
Dirac's Equation
How Max Delbruck Joined Knabenphysik
Physics Begins to Split
Delbruck's Choices
Conservation of Energy     181
The Mysteries of the Nucleus
The Barrier Is Too High
Heaven and Earth
The Revolutionary Proposals
The Three Young Geniuses Each Write a Book
The New Generation Comes of Age     207
TheApprenticeship
Copenhagen 1932
The "Blegdamsvej Faust"
Delbruck's Dilemma
The Miracle Year     229
The Discovery of the Neutron
Copenhagen and the Neutron
The Miracle Year
Big Science Is Born
The Hammer and the Needle
Ehrenfest's End     249
Epilogue: Or What Happened Afterward to the Front Row's Other Six     257
How Meitner Discovered Nuclear Fission
How Bohr Lived Happily Ever After
How Dirac Got Married
How Heisenberg Inspired His Friend to Paint Like Titian
How Pauli's Anima Made Him Leave the United States
How Delbruck Became a Biologist
Coda     271
Acknowledgments     273
Notes     276
Bibliography     293
Index     298

Editorial Reviews

In physics, 1932 was the "Miracle Year," but in most of Europe, it was the beginning of a nightmare. While world-class scientists struggled to assimilate the discovery of the neutron and the world's first artificially induced nuclear transformation, fascism sunk its claws into the center of the continent. In April of that year, scores of the world's leading physicists converged at Copenhagen Institute for their annual informal gathering about developments in their specialty. Among those in attendance were Werner Heisenberg, Lise Meitner, Paul Ehrenfest, Wolfgang Paul, Paul Dirac, and, of course, Denmark's own Niels Bohr. In Faust in Copenhagen, world-renowned physicist Gino Segrè recounts this momentous conferences and the hauntingly prophetic skit that served as its final encore.

Any reluctance I had to revisit these shrines was quickly overcome by Segrè’s inviting touch. A theoretical physicist at the University of Pennsylvania and a nephew of Emilio Segrè, who collaborated with Fermi on radioactivity research, the author begins with the “Faust” parody and circles back to it again and again. It acts like a magnet, reshaping the familiar into an interesting new design.
— The New York Times

George Johnson

Gino Segre, a theoretical physicist at the University of Pennsylvania, relates how scientists discovered the inner workings of the atom. But what really propel this book are his insights into quantum theorists' lives—their attractions, repulsions, pairings and collisions as Hitler rose to power and war loomed over Europe.
—The Washington Post

Susan P. Williams

[A] fascinating story, insightfully told and consistently engaging . . . Segrè speaks to the reader with enthusiasm, at times unable to conceal his excitement about the fascinating story he's sharing, yet his telling is deftly and dramatically structured, providing necessary historical and scientific context, clearly and concisely.

San Francisco Chronicle

Cracking good narrative history.

Time

The story of a 1932 meeting at the Niels Bohr's Copenhagen Institute that brought together some 40 physicists, among them the founders of quantum mechanics. The title comes from an impromptu spoof of Goethe's Faust staged by the junior physicists at the meeting, lightheartedly lampooning their famous elders. Some of those "elders" were barely in their 30s, notably Paul Dirac and Werner Heisenberg, the brightest physics stars of their day. The one they all acknowledged as a father figure was Niels Bohr, host of the conference. Lise Meitner, the only woman present, was perhaps the finest experimental physicist there, or anywhere. Two giants were absent: Albert Einstein, who was leaving Europe in response to Germany's turn toward Adolf Hitler, and Wolfgang Pauli, perhaps the age's sharpest critical intellect. Segre (Physics and Astronomy/Univ. of Pennsylvania; A Matter of Degrees: What Temperature Reveals About the Past and Future of Our Species, Planet, and Universe, 2002) gives a clear, non-technical summary of the discoveries and advances that led up to the Copenhagen meeting, and he explores the personal relationships of the key figures. Bohr, whom the authors of the Faust skit put in the role of God, tended to find his ideas in dialogue with others, often pushing them to the edge of exhaustion with his questioning. Heisenberg, Bohr's prize pupil, was the most daring innovator, best known for his "uncertainty principle" defining the limits of what can be measured in physics. Dirac, whose extreme literalness became legendary, laid down the mathematical underpinnings of the new science. And Meitner was shortly to hit upon the key to nuclear fission-the discovery that transformed physicsinto a genuine Faustian bargain with its application to warfare. Segre effectively combines science history with the personal lives of the conference participants, offering an enlightening look at a key event in modern science and those who took part in it.

Kirkus Reviews